In one sense, the 2025 World Series is not a battle of equals.
The Dodgers have been this far often enough in the last decade that their organizational strategy seems to be to use the regular season to prepare for October. They have veterans, players who have starred on the big stage, guys who have won rings but want more.
The Toronto Blue Jays’ players are relative newbies, playing for a franchise that was once perched atop the baseball world – but here’s some perspective as to how long that’s been: When they last got to a World Series and won it, in 1993, they weren’t indisputably Canada’s team because the Montréal Expos still existed.
Put it another way: Active players on the Dodgers’ 40-man roster have participated in 121 career World Series games. Members of the Blue Jays’ roster have played in 21, 18 of them by outfielder George Springer and pitcher Max Scherzer.
The assumption now, of course, is that the 2025 Jays aren’t only Canada’s team but have become the darlings of most of North America. One survey, from betting outfit BetOnline.ag, used The Platform Formerly Known As Twitter as its main source of research and estimated that 97% of those who commented on that platform will be pulling for the Blue Jays when the World Series begins Friday night in Rogers Centre.
Their map listed 46 of this country’s 50 states as Blue Jays territory, the exceptions being California, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah. That tells me this “research” didn’t take into account most of Northern California and all of San Diego County.
Still, as we suggested a couple of weeks ago, Dodger fans might as well embrace this Evil Empire narrative.
All of that said? The Dodgers are heavy favorites to burnish their legacy with a third World Series championship in six years, which would be the ninth in franchise history. They’re the hot team, 9-1 in this postseason (and 4-0 on the road). They’re rested following their sweep of Milwaukee, though as we’ll explain that could be a double-edged sword. Their starting rotation, magnificent throughout the postseason, is rested and perfectly lined up for the first four games of this series.
And the best player in baseball, Shohei Ohtani, seems to have regained his hitting stroke.
Dodgers in four, right?
Not so fast.
There is this alarming bit of history: Four previous times since the League Championship Series was expanded to a best-of-seven format in 1985, a team that swept its series played a team that needed a Game 7 to get to the World Series. Each time, the team that won its LCS in seven games also won the World Series.
(One of those occurred in 1988. I’m sure Orel Hershiser would be delighted to describe both that NLCS and its aftermath.)
And the discrepancy in days off isn’t that severe. The Dodgers clinched their series sweep with Milwaukee last Friday. The Blue Jays eliminated Seattle on Monday, so they’ve had three off days at home and time to reset their own pitching.
The Dodgers have a resurgent Ohtani, following a Game 4 against Milwaukee that has to at least be one of the most impressive individual acts in the history of the game: A two-hit, 10-strikeout pitching performance in six-plus innings and three home runs, including a 469-foot drive that cleared the right field pavilion. If you go to Game 3 in The Ravine on Monday, you might want to check the plaza behind the pavilion for a commemorative plaque.
But Toronto has Vladimir Guerrero Jr., and the son of the Hall of Famer (and former Expo and Angel) is on his own heater. He has a .338 average, six homers, 13 RBIs and a 1.098 OPS in 11 games this postseason, and in the last five against Seattle – four of which the Jays won – his OPS was 1.515.
There is also the possibility that shortstop Bo Bichette could be activated for the World Series. Bichette, a career .294 hitter, hit .311 with 18 homers and 94 RBIs in 139 games this season but suffered a sprained ligament in his left knee in early September. Before Monday’s Game 7, Toronto manager John Schneider said Bichette was making “significant progress,” and afterward Bichette himself said: “I’ll be ready.”
A potential complication there: If Bichette is only healthy enough to DH, Springer – who has his own health issues after getting hit in the knee during the Seattle series – will have to play in the outfield. Stay tuned.
For what it’s worth, the Dodgers won two of three from the Jays in Los Angeles in August. But that Sunday afternoon game, a 5-4 loss in the ninth inning in which Blake Treinen gave up the lead in the eighth and Alex Vesia gave up the winning hit in the ninth, was an early glimpse of the relief pitching problems that would plague the Dodgers for more than two months, with 16 games lost by the bullpen from July 9 through Sept. 23.
Just consider: If Treinen and Vesia had done their jobs better that afternoon, this series would be starting in Los Angeles rather than Toronto.
Have the bullpen issues been fixed? They seem to have been so far, but the outcome of this series might hinge on a definitive answer to that question.
In the meantime, here are a couple of predictions we can be sure of.
Ohtani will be booed lustily in Toronto, because some Jays fans apparently still feel jilted that he signed with the Dodgers. They would have paid undue attention to those social media rumors on that weekend in December, 2023, claiming that Ohtani was on a private plane headed for Toronto to sign a Blue Jays contract.
And Springer will hear it when he gets to Dodger Stadium, as a member of the 2017 Houston Astros. The furor in L.A. over those Astros’ sign-stealing shenanigans will remain as long as the key personalities from that team remain active, and this particular crowd reaction has already been discussed on social media.
Springer, whose homer in Game 7 got the Blue Jays here, did hit five home runs in that 2017 World Series. That included a two-run homer in the second inning of Game 7 in L.A. to give Houston a 5-0 lead, which wasn’t a result of sign-stealing as much as it was Yu Darvish pitching lousy that night.)
Another, more significant prediction? This World Series won’t be a walkover. But it will be another championship for L.A.
Dodgers in six.
jalexander@scng.com